Friday, August 23, 2013

Weapon That Never Was ... Or Was It?

Tribble Launcher

Being an economic powerhouse, the Federation
sponsors a tremendous amount of research. While some of this results in
useful gadgets like the type-G missile rack, replicators, and 8-track
tapes, an equal amount of the research goes towards developing useless
items such as positron flywheels and public television.

One item
that should have been more useful than it turned out to be was the
Shoulder-Fired Tribble Launcher. Designed to take advantage of the
allergic reaction Klingons display around tribbles, the intention was
that special forces and heavy weapons units could disrupt Klingon
attacks and troop concentrations by lobbing live tribbles into their midst. Like all "non-lethal" weapons, troops had to carry the thing
around looking for the rare circumstances in which it would work, then
make an effort to set up (or find) just the right tactical situation.
While it was used by some special forces units and actually did work as
advertised, most troops issued such weapons quickly discarded them as
too heavy to carry around "just in case." In one instance, Federation
special forces used the weapons to lob tribbles into a prison camp,
causing panic among the Klingon guards and facilitating an escape by
hundreds of Federation prisoners.

Each missile is one tribble (in
a canister), which (if it hits someone) causes 2d of crushing damage.
Each tribble+canister weighs half a pound. When the tribble reaches the
target, roll against its health (in GURPS this is 15) to see if it survives. If the tribble
does survive, any Klingons within 10 yards must roll a fright check.

About Me

Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. is a game-publishing company that creates and publishes games based on the Original Series of Star Trek. We have a contract with Paramount Pictures to do so. Posts and blogs that are not directly related to gaming are the opinions of the individuals who write them, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.